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Middlesex County Medical Society Presentation
-- November 16th, 2005
Partners In Care is looking
forward to presenting to the Middlesex County Medical Society at
its November 16th, 2005 meeting. We have provided our presentation
materials to the Medical Society to make available to the membership on their
website for your review and consideration.
The Partners In Care staff is
looking forward to opportunities for collaboration with both the Middlesex
County and NJ State Medical Societies on issues important to our respective
memberships.
For a better understanding of
the scope of services Partners In Care now provides to Physicians and the
Employers in the Central New Jersey region, please click on the link below:
Presentation to the Middlesex County Medical
Society
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Large
companies find lower health care hikes since 1999
BenefitNews.com - October 11, 2005
Large employers may have a reason to party like
it's 1999, Hewitt Associates finds, as 2005 was the
lowest rate of health cost increases
in six years.
Yet, the celebration may be short-lived. Hewitt is projecting a 9.9% average
increase for employers following this year's 9.2% hike. Hewitt's estimate is
based on analysis of 2,000 health plans at 400 large employers. Other
surveys also have predicted that
health cost increases will be lower than double-digit hikes seen in 2001 through
2004.
"While it is encouraging to see cost increases stabilizing, the rate of growth
remains unsustainable and the magnitude of health care costs continue to a major
concern for employers' bottom lines and employees' wallets," says Craig Dolezal,
Hewitt's national care practice leader.
Not all health care markets have experienced cost moderation. Hewitt reports 10%
to 12% cost increases in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Kansas City,
Orlando, Sacramento, Orange County, Calif., and the Tampa Bay area.
To lower cost increases, Dolezal recommends employers offer consumer-driven
health plans and disease management and wellness programs to employees, require
more quality data and price transparency from health providers, and change
prescription drug coverage to mandate mail-order delivery for certain
therapeutic drugs and to promote use of generic medications. |
Consumer-driven options complicate open enrollment
BenefitNews.com - October 11,
2005
Continued cost shifting, more
consumer-driven health care options and a new Medicare benefit
make this year's open enrollment season a potential minefield
for benefit managers.
"With many employers once again passing rising health care costs
to their workers, open enrollment season has become more than
simply a process of checking off which benefits employees would
like for the following year," says Tom Billet, a senior
consultant with Watson Wyatt.
Billet identifies six trends that will affect benefit managers
as they raise their game during this challenging open enrollment
season:
- A growing number of
employers are designing their health benefit plans to
emphasize first-dollar cost sharing. For many employees,
that means they will be covering 20% of the cost instead of
paying $15 to $25 co-payments when they visit their doctor
or hospital.
- Many employers are
scrapping prescription drug benefit plans that require
co-payments for generic and brand-name drugs and replacing
them with plans that require co-insurance and deductibles.
- More employers are
adding health savings accounts and health reimbursement
arrangements. Larger companies are generally offering these
accounts as an option to a traditional health benefits plan
while smaller firms offer consumer-driven plans as the only
option.
- Bigger financial
incentives are being offered to employees to complete health
risk assessments and participate in wellness programs.
- Tools that help workers
make better health care decisions are more widely available.
- With the new Medicare
prescription program set to begin in 2006, Medicare-eligible
retirees will be flooded with information about the program
during open enrollment season.
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